


For Shadows to Fall, Light Must Shine

by Amadi



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Disability, F/M, Injury Recovery, Reconciliation, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-01
Updated: 2010-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-06 06:43:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amadi/pseuds/Amadi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three years after Narada, Gaila and Pike reconnect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Shadows to Fall, Light Must Shine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [possibly_thrice](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=possibly_thrice).



> This was written for the [](http://community.livejournal.com/ladies1st/profile/)[**ladies1st**](http://community.livejournal.com/ladies1st/) Star Trek XI Gynocentric Fic Exchange for the 2009 holiday season, as a gift for [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/possibly_thrice/profile)[**possibly_thrice**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/possibly_thrice/). Thank you to my beta reader, cheerleader, hand-holder and just generally awesome friend [](http://v-angelique.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**v_angelique**](http://v-angelique.dreamwidth.org/) for her assistance in bringing this story to fruition.

"Am I seeing who I think I'm seeing?" The voice echoes behind her and Gaila is startled, but smiles before she turns. She wasn't sure she'd ever hear him again but she'd know that voice anywhere. For as long as she lives.

"Admiral," she stands, a faint whir heard as a bioengineered knee extends, bears her weight. "You made this place important to me, it has a lot of special memories." She holds out her hands to him. "Won't you come and join me?"

She watches as Christopher Pike circles the bench, her smile widening. The cane he uses is clearly more for security than assistance, he doesn't need to lean as heavily upon it as he had six months before in the news holovid she saw. (She might have watched it several times over.) She can see that his grip on the carved wooden handle is loose, that it doesn't bear his weight. She's pleased with the signs of his continued recovery.

"It's such a pleasure to see you, Lieutenant Commander." He's smiling now too, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "You look well, happy."

"Ah, you know, of course you know," she laughs, and realizes as he gets closer that she's breaking all the rules. She snaps to attention, offering him a crisp salute. "Sir."

"Oh, at ease, Gaila, really." He laughs, waving off the formality.

"I'm sorry, I'm all out of protocol here, _here_ in this place. It's hard to think of you as anything other than 'Chris' here." They had met by chance once upon a time, here in the Japanese Tea Garden in the middle of Golden Gate Park. It was centuries old and the most peaceful place Gaila had found in the city. That chance meeting became a planned one, and soon enough, a weekly standing date. They wore civilian clothes, came by different paths. No one knew that they were a captain and a cadet. And sometimes they forgot that fact themselves.

"Still?" He puts his cane on the bench, stepping in to pull her into a hug of the sort they used to share, _before_. It's startling when he realizes that it's been more than three years now. "That's good to know, Gaila. I've thought of you, here, our afternoons, so often." He doesn't let go.

"I don't think a day passes that I don't have those memories, good memories. I wanted to get in touch," she whispers, her nose against his shoulder, fingers straying to pet his hair, white now, just a smattering of brown in the soft curls. "We were both in the hospital, but any message I could've sent that others would've seen wouldn't have been... right. Then you were released before I was, and went away. All I heard was that you were in the desert. And not accepting comms."

"I needed to recuperate. There's physical therapy for the body, but," Chris shrugs, his nose nestled in _her_ curls, that vibrant red like nothing else he's ever known in this world or any other, even amongst other Orions. He knows that she understands, that she had her own recovery to deal with. He lets her go, sits, encouraging her to join him. His smile returns when she nestles against his side. He glances down at her legs. "I can't tell."

It takes her a moment to figure out what he's referring to. She laughs and lifts her knee, flexing and extending it for his benefit, letting him hear the mechanical sounds. "I'm useless for away expeditions, in case stealth is ever required. I can't sneak up on a cup of tea now. But I'm fit for engineering. I made assistant chief on The Yorktown. I'm waiting for my next assignment now."

He nods knowingly. "I heard that through my grapevine. Your Captain's my former XO, you know." Chris barks a soft laugh. "I'm proud of you. I know that it hasn't been easy." It's a grave understatement. It hasn't been easy on anyone who was a part of those horrible days, the attack, the aftermath. So much was lost, so much taken from them all.

"No, not easy, but a wise man once taught me that what's easy isn't always what's best. He dared me to find my potential and exceed it. Dig down deep inside and find what it takes to excel."

Chris laughs again. "Who was that guy? Sounds like a real pretentious asshole." He's mellowed. He still expects the most out of cadets but he's not the hardass he once was. That part of him died on the Narada. Or maybe in the Mojave, he's not sure.

"Mmm, not really. He had wonderful soft spots. He liked flowers," Gaila remembers, dreamily. "And ice cream cones. And dogs. He had a very soft spot for dogs. I even saw him pet a tribble once."

"A tribble! You don't say!"

They fall into easy conversation, memories mixed with stories of her time back in space, and his back at the Academy. It turns out that she left San Francisco three days before he returned. So close, and yet so far. She shares a tale of a shore leave on Risa that was a spectacular failure for everyone involved when their hotel flooded. He explains how he's been teaching his graduate security seminar about her backdoor into the Kobayashi Maru programming.

As afternoon turns to evening, he tells her how Kirk and Spock rescued him from The Narada, sharing only an abbreviated version of what was done to him by the vengeance-bent Romulans. She in turn tells him what she knows, what she's been told, of her rescue from the bowels of the crippled and dying Farragut, how the Laurentian assistant chief somehow freed her from under the bulkhead that destroyed her leg and dragged her to one of only a dozen shuttles to make it away from the killing field that day.

They trade tales of their physical therapists, how they all seemed to be sadists. "But results-oriented sadists, at least," Gaila laughs. She looks up. The fall afternoon has given way to evening, the sky over the bay painted in pinks and oranges. "Look at the sunset," she points.

"Feels like old times, doesn't it? Talking the whole afternoon away." Chris sits up, cracking his back. He kisses her forehead, unsure if anything more would be welcome. "You've done well, Gaila. A far cry from the cadet I spent afternoons with here."

"Different in many ways," she agrees, "but much the same in others. The parts of me that you came to know _after_ our afternoons here. They've been quiet, but they're still here. I think... I think I've been waiting for you."

He's shocked. He sits back, looks at her, his blue eyes wide with the question. "Waiting for me? You? Gaila, you don't mean..." An Orion not having sex is like a Vulcan permanently casting away logic. It doesn't happen.

"No, I've had sex, Chris. It was a long time before it happened, but there's been sex," she laughs softly. "But I didn't just have sex with you. It meant more to me than that. It wasn't like anything with anyone else."

Now _that_, he can agree with. "You're right. Our affair was singular. Unlike anything else." He strokes a finger over her full, red lips. "Gaila, would you like to?"

"So much, Chris. So very much." She gestures over her shoulder. "I'm staying at Maobli's apartment," the engineer who rescued her from the Farragut, now an Academy instructor. "She's teaching at the science campus in Russia this term. It's, oh," she bites her lip. "It was a fifteen minute walk for me. Do you think...?"

Chris nods. "We'll take it easy." He picks up his walking stick, rises and offers her a hand. "Hold my hand?"

Another whir as she stands, and she fits her fingers with his. "I won't let go."


End file.
